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ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP 



AND 



THE SONGS THAT SANG THEMSELVES 



BY 



KATE DOORIS SHARP 



3S 





CINCINNATI 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 

li 






Copyright, 

ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 

1888. 



CONTENTS. 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

PAGE, 

ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP 11 

MY STKONG EIGHT ARM 14 

DEAD LOVE 22 

THE VOID 27 

TAKE BACK THE EING 44 

A BRIDAL DOWER 46 



THE SONGS THAT SANG THEMSELVES. 

COMPENSATIONS 51 

THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA 53 

WE'LL NOT GIVE UP THE FLAGS 55 

ONE AT NICE 58, 

V 



PAGE. 

FROM A HAMMOCK...... 62 

THE VOICELES SONG 65 

MY LADY ELM 67 

hark! hark 69 

THE SPARROW 71 

A POET PASSED THIS WAY 76 

MICHAELMAS DAISIES 78 

IN WINTER 81 

KATYDID '..... 85 

AMERICAN IVY 89 

THE CHICKADEE 91 

THE KINGDOM OF HOME 93 

SUMMER , 95 

SOWING 96 

" SOME DAY." 98 

A VALENTINE 100 

SUNSET 102 

OVER THE SEA 103 

CEDAR ROCK— A MEMORY 105 

WRECKED 106 

TO MY MOTHER 108 

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY 109 

YOUR PICTURE 110 

FOR ARBOR DAY .111 

DECEIVED 112 

AN EARLY SPRING 113 

WRITTEN IN AN OLD ALBUM 116 

IN JUNE 117 

WHILE THE YEAR GOES OUT 119 

vi 



CONTENTS. 



WITH THE CHILDREN. 

PAGE. 

MY LADDIE'S VALENTINE I25 

HYMN FOR A CHILD 126 

HARRY 127 

LEIGH 132 

BABY'S BY-LOW I33 



SONGS WITH SORROW. 

AT ELBERON .. I37 

DEATH OF LOGAN 138 

EPIOEDE 139 

AT A CHILD'S GRAVE I43 

MADELEINE I45 

MEDITA TIONS. 

EASTER-EVEN 151 

IN DUBIO 153 

THE GREAT TEACHER I54 

A PORTRAIT 15g 

MY ENEMY I57 

THE PILGRIM IgQ 



Vll 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 



I see them moving down the glade: 
Fair lad and lass, the world is theirs. 

For thejn the tiniverse was made. 
They of its riches are the heirs. 

I like his manly air of pride ^ 
Subservient to her empire coy. 

Love is sweet and will abide ! 
Life is a summer dream of joy I 

Hark to his protest, soft and sweet. 
Behold her eyelid'' s tender play. 

1 loiter with their loitering feet : 
/, too, have dwelt itz Arcady. 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

I. 

A WINTER night upon a city street, 
A moon high up in heaven 'mid sailing clouds ; 
A light so vivid that the cloud snow-heaps 
Grew faintly rose and golden at the edge. 
How high the houses loomed on either side ! 
An air of triumph fiUed the lofty sky ; 
And the beholder's eye, with rapt delight, 
Paused to absorb the glory of the scene. 
Two there were there who walked with throbbing hearts, 
A youth and maiden in life's early bloom. 
Life on her brow set seal of thoughtfulness, 
And in her bosom stirred the wish to be. 
To do, for earth and fellow-kind. In thought 
She dwelt among the world's advancing host, 
Who herald forth a wider, freer day. 
Right and Reform her standards were — her creed. 

11 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

Life had, as yet, no grief for her, but as 
She stumbled, now and then, on tracks of sin. 
The world of home, the world of books was her*s ; 
The outer world of men and women kind 
Reached her but as the distant roar of waves. 
The callow springs of fifteen sheltered years 
Were dimly throbbing into summer's glow 
Of passion and ambition, and a wish 
To place her name, tho' humbly, where the world 
Would guard it from the rude decay of death. 
Something within her stirred — or true or false 
She never stopped to question — which spurred on 
The hope that life would not be commonplace. 
But lighted by the glow of some good deed, 
Some noble word written to raise mankind. 

And he, the youth beside her, loved her well, 
Because of her grand purposes and thoughts, 
Because she was so different from the rest. 
Loved her, or thought he loved, which oft is like, 
So difficult 'tis to discriminate 
Between things as they are and as we wish. 

She knew she did not love him ; knew full well 
His fair smooth cheek was not her hero's own ; 

12 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

Knew that his voice had not the ring of his 
Who was to be her heart's king — her delight. 
But he had long his true devotion shown 
By due consideration for her good ; 
By gift of odorous flower, or blushing fruit ; 
By manly deference to her slightest wish. 

And now he spoke of love. Never that word 
Between them had been spoken till to-night. 
The mute, appealing language of kind deeds 
Had been his only supplicants till now. 
Never, till he had known her, so he said, 
Had life seemed filled with objects worth respect. 
He felt that with her love, her hand in his. 
He could go forth and battle like a man ; 
And would she — would she, dearest, be his wife? 
Not then, but after many days, she gave 
Beluctant acquiescence to his wish, 
And, placing in his hands a folded scroll. 
Told him that she had writ his future there, 
And thought of life in fancy as himself. 
He took it to his home and read these lines : 



13 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

MY STRONG RIGHT ARM. 
I. 

Who is braver in the world's wide oattle-field than I — 
Surer of a great success beneath the sunny sky ? 
Who has more to win and hope for thro' the coming years, 
Casting back the murky shadows and the busy fears ? 
I — I, standing like Alcides on the rocky slope, 
Clutch the very fate Antseus with my crowning hope. 
Casting him against the zenith, swooning, reeling, black. 
As I cast all disappointment, upward from my track ! 

n. 

Who would pause for wealth and glitter in the busy day ? 
Who would thirst while living fountains sparkle on their 

way? 
Who would perish in the valleys and the deserts' mirage 

waste, 

While the gleaming mountains offer nectar to the taste ? 

Who so cowardly to falter and grow weak of soul 

While the olive-crown awaits him, victor at the goal ? 

Perish, perish all dishonor — coward fear of harm : 

Every obstacle shall tremble through my strong right 

arm! 

14 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 



m. 



Who would rest, in noonday's fervor, when the sun 

burns red. 
Sleeping — on another's labor pillowing his head ! 
Never dreaming that the powers, wasted, wearing out 
In the slavish ease of Pleasure, only stain and flout ! 
Upward, onward raise the spirit, struggling afar 
Till the hero-soul be deified — translated — as a star 
Shining in the blue empyreal of the world of fame. 
More than mortal glorified, beyond the power to name. 



IV. 



Nobler in the dust of ages and the cycles manifold, 
Are the names of those who battled earnestly and bold; 
Names of might, enshrining spirits nevermore to die. 
Living, breathing, working in us missions grand and 

high. 
Greater is the spirit-atom, 'scaped from strong Hellenic 

dust. 
Than a myriad's myriad, embalming Sybaritic rust. 
Nobler 'tis, with man and Adam, bearing man's decree, 
Through the thorns and briars wearing our divinity ! 

15 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 



V. 



Oh ! to hear across the zenith, yet again the ringing cry ; 
Man, a slave no more to passion, shouting " Victory!" 
Man, a slave no more to self and sordid sloth. 
Cast away the gloss of pleasure. Fashion's idle moth ; 
Live in earnest, rearing structures real, bright and new, 
Striving, as the Spirit striveth, ever to be true ; 
Joining with the mighty mind a shield against alarm, 
The noblest ally of the soul, his powerful right arm ! 



YI. 



So I, standing at the entrance, only in the vestibule. 

Hear the swelling anthems pealing and the voices round 
and full. 

Hear the nations in deep chorus, like the ringing of the 
spheres. 

Fraught with chords of high endeavor, and the under- 
tone of tears ; 

Chords of strength and holy purpose, touched alone by 
master-hands, 

Masters who have fought undaunted on the burning 
sands j 

16 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

And I, too, a master-singer, singing, win tlie master- 
charm 
By my life's unwearied battle, by my strong rigbt arm ! 

vn. 

Wherefore ? Wherefore ? Let me question, is the work 

too vast ? 
Are the years too full of peril, dangers sown broadcast ? 
Shall I pause to count how many steps the tired feet 

must take ? 
O'er how many bitter taunts and stabs the weary heart 

must ache ? 
Oh ! and oh ! the groans that perjured falsity will bring ; 
Or, above some buried idol, funeral dirges ring ! 
Or, I watch to see my star shine, and the sky is full of 

rain, 
Will the burden be too heavy, and too sharp the pain ? 

vni. 

God in Heaven, I stand before Thee, human clay indeed, 
Dust in weakness and contrition, poor in power and 

deed. 
Thou hast given to me a mission, as to every man, 
And, believing that thou givest power to say " I can" — 

17 



ELEANOR'S. COUETSHIP. 

In my impotence of power, alone I trust in Thee, 
Stronger in that proud dependence, in that service /ree, 
Thou hast given mind and intellectual sway, 
And Thou hast given that strong right arm to work for 
Thee alway. 

IX. 

Through the long array of triumphs, still ennobling man, 
Through the contest and the conquest ever runs a plan ; 
Like a line of lambent glory, as a law unbroken runs 
Thro' invisible ellipses, binding suns with suns ; 
Thro' the earnest toil and labors of the lives and hopes 

untold, 
Binding good deeds, small and glorious, in the Book of 

Gold, 
Binding that which speaks and speaks not, in the potent 

charm, 
They have gotten place and power through Thy strong 

right arm. 

X. 

Who is braver in the world's wide battle-field than I ? 

Surer of a true success, beneath the sunny sky ? 

There is strength in very weakness, power in the clay, 

That His kind hand was sanctified, cleansing all doubt 

away. 

18 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

world, I scorn your dangers, I laugh at your despite ; 

1 shall go on victorious with more than mortal might ; 
I scorn your base self-seekers, I fear not your alarm, 
While the mightiest of conquerors doth nerve my strong 

right arm. 



n. 



The winter sped apace ; the quiet nights 

Beside the glowing hearth, with cheerful voice 

Of song or reading, rounded out the days. 

He chose her favorite poets, and their thoughts 

Of tenderness or love, he stamped as his 

By loving look or gentle touch of hand. 

The rings he gave upon her finger shone, 

Their glow being not reflected in her heart. 

For, as the days passed into blooming Spring, 

A discontent grew rampant in her breast. 

Her dreams at night were troubled and distraught. 

The rings, poor innocents, were hated bands, 

Chaining her to a moral servitude. 

Rambles, long and lonely, by the river, 
When days were gray and misty like her hopes, 

19 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

She took, that she might meditate alone. 

It was not right, not right ! she groaned in thought, 

To break her word to one who trusted her ; 

But, better that than wed and grow apart. 

Thus, what is but a pastime to some maids, 

To Eleanor became a grief and care. 

To be right was better than happiness. 

At length the struggle ended, and one night, 

The springtime being chilly yet and raw, 

The ring she gave him back, into the fire 

He flung with muttered wrath ; and rushing forth. 

She saw his face no more for many days. 



III. 



The summer time went by ; with her young friends 
She rambled thro' the woodlands, and their steps 
Led them among the hilly slopes, where lay 
The graves of those who slept the sleep of death. 
Outwardly she was calm, to dumbness even, 
But her breast surged with wild, unuttered thoughts. 
No confidant had she, whose ready ear, 

20 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP, 

Bending, drank in the story of her heart ; 

Nor could she have expressed to any one 

The dim desires and throbbings of her soul. 

Yet here, in this still place, she found a friend, 

A friend who listened and gave answer back, 

And strengthened her with strength for years to come. 

A massive oak tree, on a rounding slope, 

Flung wide its verdant shade acro?JS the graves ; 

And, leaning on its trunk, one afternoon, 

The still air stirring scarce, among its leaves, 

She felt a certain sympathetic thrill 

Enter her being ; and a voice that seemed 

To whisper from its branches, said to her : 

*' Lo, behold ! For centuries I have stood, 
For centuries more shall stand. The sunshine 
And the storm are both alike. Good only 
Can arise at God's behest. Eain and dew, 
That wash my leaves with gentle minist'ring, 
Are brothers to the blast that rends the air, 
And sways to tumult all my surging arms. 
Be patient, and await development. 
Be calm and self-contained, and trust thy God; 
This is the secret of all earthly good. 
Behold me as I stand ! I spread my leaves, 

21 



ELEANOR'S, COURTSHIP. 

And take the shining sun with thankfulness. 
Before the storm I bend, and when 't is past, 
To mightier endurance P ve attained. 
I am thy humble brother of the dust." 

Then Eleanor arose and wandered home 
Still pondering the lesson she had learned 
Under the shadow of the mighty oak ; 
Nor ever till her dying day forgot 
The friendly counsel of that dumb old king. 

DEAD LOVE. 

The love of by-gone years 
' Lies buried low ; 
No bitter floods of tears 

Above it flow. 
Gone, like the summer flowers, 
Or the soft-falling showers. 

Dead love, thou liest low. 

Sometimes the songs she sang 

Float back again ; 
The bird-like notes that rang 

Once more are fain. 
22 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

Her face floats thro' the air, 
Like something sliadowy, fair ; 
I feel again love's pain. 

She sings the songs I gave 
When we were young ; 

Fond memory thou dost save 
The odors wrung 

From love, dead in gone years, 

And on the air she hears 
The songs together sung. 



IV. 

Years passed — three years of toil and labor long. 
Among a city's busy denizens. 
Her fate had drawn her forth among her kind, 
Had broadened out her bosom's sympathies, 
Op'ning the pages of that wondrous book 
The human heart, the human selfishness. 
Much, much she saw of good and greatness there ; 
And kindly threw th mantle charity. 
The outgrowth of her own pure love of right, 
Around the murky seeming of dark deeds. 

23 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

If, now and then, some unexpected sins. 

Threw dimness on the mirror's surface clear, 

Within her thought she sadly turned and mourned ; 

Yet, erelong, smiled again and raised her head, 

Saying, " Because a little dust hath bloAvn 

Into my eyes, across the radiant air. 

Shall I not, therefore, love my fellow men ? " 

If some malicious nature, soured and cold. 

Into her sunshine breathed its poisonous damps, 

She turned herself aside some other way, 

Nor paused to drink the rank contagion in. 

Nor to return aught bitter for the bad. 

Thus, like the tree, she spread her sheltering arms, 

Clothed in the foliage of her human love ; 

The influence of her virtue beamed on all. 

Nor had she lacked for lovers all these years — 
For natures such as hers attract their kind — 
But she had all denied until this day. 
A student — like herself, a devotee 
Before the shrine of scientific lore — 
Had won the inward homage of her heart. 
She felt that she had need of him, had trust 
In him above his fellows, and she gave. 
Unconsciously, her heart into his care. 

24 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

His birthday drawing near, lie asked of her 
A boon ; and would she pen for him some lines, 
A little rhyme to keep in memory ? 
And, like the man of science that he was, 
He gave a subject metaphysical, 
" The Void," and its required, " The Complement." 
Then Eleanor took the subject to her breast, 
'And there it grew a vital thing of love, 
The story of an empty seeking heart. 

One day in winter-time, a holiday 

Was spent by these two climbing the steep stair, 

Upleading to the dome of an old tower. 

Together they had gazed across the roofs. 

Across the river and the smoky piles 

Of distant factories, to the far extreme 

Of the white-clouded blue. They were alone. 

In all the world there seemed only they two, 

And all the world was theirs of love and trust. 

Her life had opened into perfect flower 

Of womanly devotion to her lord. 

But yet, self-doubting, when he asked her hand, 

She timidly desired some slight delay, 

A time to look along her life and think. 



25 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP, 

What does a maiden know about the world ? 
A fine, romantic sentiment is all 
Her short experience gives to her of life. 
Does she foresee the thralldom of home cares, 
The thousand petty chains that bind one down, 
And keep the fingers busy day by day? 
The treadmill of domestic routine lies 
About her footsteps as a web thrice woven. 
Where wealth is not, there is the drudgery 
Of skillinoc unused finsjers to the task 
Of wise contrivance for the daily bread ; 
Of nursing helpless babes, and all that care. 
And in the lap of luxury and ease 
Fashion holds sceptered sway, ruling her slaves 
With stern, if rosy, bondage. At her feet 
Let no fond subject fancy herself free. 
A woman, when she weds — it is her fate — 
Betakes herself with all alacrity. 
At love's behest— so nature has contrived — 
Into subjection to a mortal mind. 
Thus Nature's limitations, stern before, 
Become a hades or a heaven to her. 
How float thine iris colors, gentle Love ? 
And if love always stayed, then life were sweet, 
Even if behind a gilded prison's bars. 

26 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

Eleanor loved ; and no foreboding clouds 
Athwart the future raised a warning sign. 
And when her little rhythmic tale she gave, 
She gave her hand, her heart, her future, all. 



THE VOID. 

'T was where the cold, gray sea rolls in 
Her foamy surf upon the rocks, 

And beats with hollow, gloomy din, 
The granite blocks. 

They stood upon a jutting crag 
That looked far out across the sea ; 

His face bore thought that would not flag, 
And fair was she. 

Upon his brow, full wide and high, 

Was marked the ^vealth of reason's power, 

That knew its zenith bearing nigh, 
And claimed its hour. 

Upon the sea, the latest glow 

Of sunset lingered, deep and red. 

Or onward as the breakers flow, 
Or backward fled. 

27 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP, 

A little boat that rocked afar, 
Upon the edge of wavelets white, 

And seemed but as a bit of spar, 
Had caught their sight. 

A tiny dot of life it seemed, 
As far and farther out it sped, 

A bird that in the sunset gleamed, 
With colors red. 

*^ And far and farther out it speeds, 

And such must be our lives," she said. 

"Our older years have larger needs 
And little dread. 

"We leave the shores that once we knew, 
The home of happy infancy, 
The friends that were most tried and true, 
The careless glee. 

" We seek upon a pathless main 

For glory, honor, wealth, and praise, 
And speed our course in joy or pain, 
Through all our days." 
28 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

*' Nay, but the barque will reach its bourne, 
Its harbor lies across the sea ; 
And tho' the mariner may mourn, 
The day will be 

" When he shall drop his anchor down 
And furl his sail for quiet rest ; 
When he shall reach before the town 
The haven blest. 

" And I have thought these many days, 
And now the dream is here once more, 
Of somewhat where my fancy plays, 
And feelings pore. 

" This quiet eve upon the strand 

Recalls the dav when first I kenned, 
Across the wave, far out from land, 
The story penned 

*' By hoary patriarch of old. 

How at creation's distant dawn 
The mighty word of life was told 
And daylight shone. 
29 



ELEANOB'S COUETSHIF. 

*' Then I ibethought me of the waste, 
The void that was where now we are, 
Where all the spangled dome erased, 
And moon and star 

** Were not. And I bethink me things 
That have been void in earth ere now, 
That know no dip of drooping wings, 
No waving bough, 

** That boundless space to comprehend 
The human mind may try in vain — 
As easy 't w^ere the eye to send 
O' er all this main. 

" Formless and void, the expectant space 
Became the creature of His will. 
When lo ! the Spirit on its face 
The void could fill. 

*' Spirit of God, creative life 

Thus deigned to stoop from heaven above, 
And reigns ere since, through earth's long strife, 
Spirit of love. 

30 



ELEANOR'S COURTS III P. 

** What think you, friend ? The void that then 
Existed thro' the first eterne, 
Left it no trace? In marsh and fen, 
The buried fern, 

"Of giant size, records the tale 

Of earth's first prime, exaggerate 
In form and fancy, of whose pale 
We lose the date. 

"And hath that elder day foregone 

The right to stamp its touch on time ? 
Left it no vacuum, still and wan, 
To mar earth's prime ? " 

"To mar? If such there be on earth. 
As empty sj)ace, I trow," she said, 

" It can not bring of good a dearth, 
But gain instead. 

" Your words a thousand thoughts suggest 
A thousand fancies bring to mind ; 
But, certes, ' that which is, is best,' 
On cloud and wind, 
31 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

**0n dew and flower, and desert waste, 
And valley's wealth of crowding green, 
The perfect law of God is traced, 
Is grandly seen. 

" And wheresoe'er a want is found, 
This moving spirit still is lent, 
Creating, perfected and round. 
Its complement." 

I can not tell whereof he thought, 
Nor if the maiden thought at all ; 

Yet, when he spoke, the word was fraught 
With rise and fall 

Of eager thinking : '' Say you so ? 

Then all my dreaming will I tell, 
And to the winds my fancies throw, 

Or good or fell. 

*' And you will hear and understand ; 
And as, between the sea and sky. 
We two alone with Nature stand, 
Let falsehood die. 
32 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

" And I will speak the word I feel, 

The thought you think I pray reply, 
Ere from the sky the colors steal, 
Ere daylight die. 

"In earth there is an answering voice, 
And every thirsty sod has dew ; 
The darkest cavern may rejoice 
With some fair hue. 

*' Deep answers deep in tempest loud ; 

Earth finds in heaven the gentle rain ; 
And cloud re-echoes back to cloud 
The bass refrain. 

*' But heart to heart ? If this be so. 

Then life was never formed in vain ; 
Then has the past a nobler glow, 
A grander gain. 

" But, looking o'er the ways of men. 
And in the ranks of care and toil, 
What find we ? Hearts that beat again. 
The wretched spoil 
33 



ELEANOR'S CO UF TSUI P. 

*' Of the destroying, cankering grief; 

Souls tliat droop dumbly with the load 
Of growths that know no greening leaf 
To cheer the road. 



" Hearts that have felt tlie world's rebuff, 
And shrink behind a chilling crust. 
To pass for selfish, hard, or rough. 
Because they must ; 

" Or, surging on the heated wall, 

To find some outlet for their thought, 
Volcano-like, surmount the thrall. 
And madly wrought, 

*' Leap out, leap over Nature's laws. 
Surge on in passion's mad career. 
And stand, of many woes the cause, 
Of man the fear. 

" O Nature, open as a book ! 

O Nature, hard to understand ! 
I beg thee, with imploring look, 
To take my hand. 
34 



ELEANO/rS COURTSHIP. 

** Lead me, beneath the open sky, 

To meadows fair that Beek the sun ; 
To mountain summits, wild and high. 
To streams that run 

*' From little rills in rocky heights. 
To brooks that widen on the plain, 
And rivers argoeied and bright. 
That seek the main. 

"Bear me, a student, to the caves. 

Where hidden currents throb and flow. 
Where never bursts the break of waves. 
But sooth and slow. 

*' And measured in her secret will. 

That knows no change by lapse of time, 
The same vast currents flow with skill. 
From clime to clime. , 

"■ Well do the waves her potence feel, 
And cause the heated stream to flow. 
From verdant coasts of bright Antilles, 
And Mexico. 

35 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

*'0r, where, beyond tlie Indian seas, 
She sweeps the shores of far Japan, 
Still bearing wealth upon the breeze, 
From earth to man. 

" And climbing high the polar wastes, 
Through Behring to the Arctic main. 
The land her gentle healing tastes. 
And blooms again. 

■'* Nor this alone : her icy spoils 
With large economy are used. 
And southern currents ease the toils 
(Sweet interfused 

'' With scorching equatorial heats) 
Of men who stoop in tropic lands. 
Her skill all human asking meets ; 
She understands. 

'' And here we pause but do not shrink, 
For here her quiet teaching lies ; 
She spreads for all who read and think 



Analogies. 



36 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

*' Her life is ours, with difference 
Of largesse in our favor cast, 
And we behold with confidence 
Our noble past. 

" Our history : the gleams of soul 

That time has struck on flinty fate. 
Our future : waves of thought that roll 
Till long and late. 

" Our present : friend, it is for us 
To mold our lives for good or ill. 
For uses we were gifted thus 
With large free will. 

** And I, who know the pathways lone, 
Where other men are sadly bent, 
Do seek this eve that other one — 
The complement." 

A silence fell into their speech. 

And neither heard the booming swell 

Of foam-capped waves, upon the beach, 
That rose and fell. 
37 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

A trouble Clime into his heart 
And to his face ; she did not see, 

But watched the fluttering swallows start 
In willful glee. 



And far away she saw the sails 
Sink slowly thro' the misty gray; 

As one who readeth plaintive tales 
At close of day, 

And only feels a quiet sense. 

Of others' pain thro' sweet repose ; 

A pity, thro' a peacefulness, 
For others' woes. 

** And is it thus," he inly thought, 
" We build our theories to dreams, 
Until reality is fraught 
With that which seems? 

" And have I bound my life by chains, 
To rocks that rest on falsest sands ? 
Slipped frotn the mooring it disdains 
The well-known lands. 

38 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

*' And must I float far out to sea, 

From all I loved or hoped of good ? 
A mastless vessel must I be, 
A block of wood ? 

*' Aud while I built ray noble life, 

And hoped the years would make it true, 
Must I awake to learn the strife 
I never knew ? 

" And vain, and vain, alas! the years, 
That grew by wisdom's charmed page. 
If I must wake to cares and tears, 
To grief and rage." 

Then, lower in his heart, '* O faint, 
O drooping courage, little tried ! 

'T were well such horrors thus to paint, 
If she denied. 

'' With manful speed, in formal wise, 
r 11 stake the sweetness of my life, 
And ask her, ere the twilight dies, 
To be my wife." 

39 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

He turned. The lights were distant seen, 

That guide the mariner to port, 
But hazy shadows crept between 

In giant sort. 

The cool, damp sea mist wrapped them round, 
And wrapped the stalwart jutting crags. 

And dimly on the sea-beach wound 
Its swathing rags. 

The clammy mist came in from sea 

To tell its mystic tales of dread ; 
Of hearts as still as hearts may be. 

In ocean dead. 

Of hearts that cling to happy breath. 

U]oon some floating plank or log, 
And fling their shrieking fear of death 

Across the foe. 



The chilling mist came up, but fell 
As prone as dew^ before the twain ; 

The charm of love their bosoms swell, 
Both dead to pain. 
40 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

For lie has told his tender plaint, 

And she has heard with love's delight, 

Yet not unmixed ; her heart is faint 
With sudden fright. 

*' Ah ! give me time," she sighing says, 
*' I know not what my will would be ; 
Fain would I think, before my days 
I give to thee." 

O patient soul of loving man ! 

O faithful love, next God's so great ! 
He : " Would the time were but a span ! 

Yet I will wait." 

"And that is all I've writ," said Eleanor; 
*' 'The Complement ' must wait some future time." 
" Nay, never mind ' The Complement,' " said he ; 
"■ 'The Complement' will be our future life." 



V. 

Have you not read, in superstition's lore, 
Of horrid demons, hags who fed upon 
The bodies of the dead at midnight hour ? 

41 



ELEANOR' B COURTSHIP. 

You did not dream such had existence now ; 
' T was but imagination's idle fruit, 
You said^ and dashed the fabled lie aside. 
Or, you have heard that ancient tale from Greece, 
Of one whose steps were bent from Cenchreas — 
Lycius by name, traveling to Corinth, he, 
Whom the fair Lamia overtook and wed ; 
And, all being seated at the bridal board, 
"Wise ApoUonius descried the cheat — 
Whereat to dust and £,shes turned the feast, 
The Lamia to a crawling serpent thing. 
So came there one to Kudolph, fair as day, 
And charming as a goddess. One whose time 
Hung wearily on small, white, useless hands ; 
Who frittered what poor passion she possessed 
In semi-bad flirtations with weak men. 
Her first youth lay behind her many a year. 
But art supplied what nature had withdra-Nvn. 
She, having taken note of Kudolph's love 
For our sweet Eleanor, betook herself 
To undermine their happiness. Thereto 
She spread in secret all her blandishments. 
Flattered and courted him, until his youth, 
So wholly inexperienced in the ways 
Of worldly women, and their pastimes bold, 

42 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 

With all her sorcery was intoxicate. 

She twitted him upon his boyish love, 

His silly, boyish love that dared not look 

At any other girl save Eleanor. 

'' O, you mistake ! " he cried; " My Eleanor 

Is not so foolish, as I'll prove to you." 

' It was a summer night. The perfumed air 
Was burdened with the hum of insect life, 
As Rudolph and fair Eleanor walked forth. 
Now, she of Lamia never yet had heard. 
And could not guess the cause of his constraint, 
Until he stammered, with a conscious tone, 
''Would you object — if — I — should pay some court- 
Some slight — attention — to another maid ? " 

"Why — " feeling all the warm blood leave ner face, 
And sudden stoppage strike her frightened heart — 
" I do not comprehend you. Pray, explain? " 
"It is Miss Lamia"— 

"Ah ! yes, I know. 
" You need confess no further, you are free. 
Take back the ring, it shall not bind you more I 



43 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

TAKE BACK THE RING. 

*' Take back the ring ! 
The shining circlet take, 
O, let this poor heart break, 
A trodden thing ! 

*' Take back the ring ! 
It was not love that gave. 
One pang I will not save. 
I will not weep and rave. 
See, I am calm and brave — 
Take back the ring ! 

"It was not love! 
Nay, never love ! Ah no ! 
My heart aches now — but O, 
It will be better so ! — 
It was not love ! 

"Take back the ring ! 
It has been all a dream, 
'T was but a fading gleam, 
Reflection of the true. 
Be happiness with you ! — 

Take back the ring ! 
44 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

*'Take back the ring, 
And leave me here — alone ! 
Let no ear hear my moan ; 
Let the storm rush along — 
Soon, soon I shall be strong, 
To my own heart be true ! 
Be happiness with you — 
• Take back the ring." 

" Now mercy on my soul ! What shall I do ! 
I meant no wrong — you do not understand ! " 
And then with many prayers and expletives, 
With vows of innocence from base intent, 
With earnest pleadings, such as lovers use. 
This sudden gust of summer storm blew o'er ; 
And Rudolph, reaping wisdom from defeat, 
Avoided Lamia and her bantering wiles. 
Who, having failed to feed on broken hearts, 
With sudden acrimony, married one— 
A man, hlase and worldly as herself — 
A gambler and intemperate as it proved. 
And so to dust and ashes turned her hopes, 
Wherein, for life, she groveled, serpentlike. 



45 



ELEANOR'S COURTSHIP. 



VI. 



When days are length'ning with the glowing sun ; 
When trees are putting forth their tender green ; 
When grass is growing long on sunny slopes • 
And dandelions make the common mead, 
Field of the Cloth of Gold ; when violets 
Are swinging perfumes rare from censers blue ; 
When birds are mating in the trees above, 
And filling all the air with melody ; 
When Nature is awaking, as from sleep, 
And all th' expectant air is filled with sounds 
Of life rejuvenescent, it seemed fit 
That wedding of two youthful hearts should be ; 
And in that time o' th' year was Eleanor 
Wed to Rudolph. Into the world they went. 
Another Adam and his helpmate Eve. 

I bring to thee a simple heart, 

Unversed in worldly thought or guile. 
To live for thee its only art, 
On thee to smile. 



46 



ELEANORS COURTSHIP. 

I bring to thee a clieek, whose blush 

Will rise with pleasure at thy name ; 
A voice, whose lowest tone or hush 
Kesounds thy fame. 

I bring a hand whose utmost skill, 
Or small or great, is ever thine. 
To guide, to cling, to do thy will, 
And the Divine. 

No fortune bring I in my hand, 

No fortune do I seek with thee ; 
And yet no lady in the land 
Is glad as me. 

Without thee, pleasure were a blight 

And wealth a burden hard to move ; 
Take they their little recked of flight. 
But leave me love. 



47 



THE SONGS THAT SANG 
THEMSELVES. 



A little bird am /, 

And I sing to cheer the morning. 
If you like me not, pray fly — 

/ give you warning. 

My song let nature weave, 

And I sing where dew-drops glisten ., 
If you like it not, believe. 

You need not listen. 



COMPENSATIONS. 

FAIR Nancy at her window sits, 
Across the way ; 
And piece to piece her patchwork fits, 

With colors gay. 
She joins them in a dream of bliss ; 
No sweeter work she asks than this. 

Her friends come in to sit awhile, 

Her work they praise ; 
And thus, with genial chat and smile. 

Slip by her days. 
She asks no higher, nobler end, 
Than approbation of her friend. 

They look with pitying eyes on me, 
Who sit alone. 
" In solitude what can there be ? " 
They sadly groan. 
They come across to cheer me then ; 
I close the page and hide my pen. 
61 



COiUPENSATIONS. 

Sweet maid, whose busy fingers flit, 

Our tasks combiue — 
You at your fairy patchwork sit, 

And I at mine. 
Your friends come in to cheer you there. 
My friends ai'e viewless as the air. 

Mine crowd around and comfort bring 

In lonely hours 
Their hands in mine I cheerily sing, 

Knee-deep in flowers. 
When here I sit in quiet nooks, 
I meet my friends in living books. 

Some gift the Giver meets to all, 

To cheer the way. 
My little songs, that rise and fixll, 

Have kept me gay ; 
In spite of jeers, in spite o^ scorn, 
They sing themselves from morn to morn. 



52 



I 



FOR THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 

L 

SAID : I will seek me out wordg, grandly-rhythmic, 
sonorous, 

Shall move like the music of winds in the thick forest 
o'er us ; 

All hearts shall acknowledge their fitneas, with glad ac- 
quiescence, 

Goodly words, in their dignity meet for her sovereign 
presence. 

I sought them, but found not. 

n. 

I said : She is great, she is noble ; no other before her, 
Bearing the scepter of empire, had more faithful adorer. 
Woman, of women the Leader, crowned their Queen 

and Defender, 
Her humblest subject, a woman, an offering v*^ould send 

her. 
My heart failed within me. 

53 



THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 



in. 

*' Enthroned she sits, greatly apart from the rude world's 
encroaching ; 

Let gold and the glitter of crystal announce your ap- 
proaching. 

What reaches the hand of a Queen — to a courtier 
listen — 

In casket of silver, with fretwork, the offering should 
glisten." 

I found it not by me. 



IV. 

A Queen by dominion of birth, but more by right of 

honor, 
Motherhood's Queen and wife's, by force of praise our 

lips put upon her. 
Her name all lands', her fame all time's, all woman's 

fame outvying — 
Give her your best, beyond the power of gold or silver's 

buying. 
At her feet lies my heart. 



54 



WE'LL NOT GIVE UP THE FLAGS. 

DEDICATED TO GOV. J. B. FORAKER. 
I. 

WE 'LL not give up the flags ! 
Each blood-stained, tattered fold 
Has cost the land a dearer price 

Than vaults of treasured gold. 
There is a gory page, 

Wrought deep by time and fate, 
Oblivion's fiercest, deepest wave 

Can not obliterate. 
'T is wet with orphan's tears, 

'T is red with patriot's blood, 
'T is branded with the shackled curse, 

Where slavery once stood. 
'T is marked with prison pens. 

With dungeons dark and dank. 
With slimy filth and wan disease, 

And hunger's shrunken flank. 
55 



WU'LL KOT GIVE UP THE FLAGS. 

'T is marked with nameless graves 

On many a battle plain, 
With many a vigil, many a march, 

In biting frost and rain. 
It bears a deeper sting, 

A poison-fang more keen : 
The wrong of brother man to man 

In war internecine. 
It bears a traitor's sneer, 

A traitor's broken vow, 
That thought, the noblest land on earth, 

In low disgrace to bow. 
But O, above it all, 

A glorious halo glows ; 
The light her sons around her threw 

When Liberty arose — 
When she arose in strength 

And grasped those hateful rags, 
And gave them to her sons to keep ; 

We 'II not give up the flags ! 

n. 

we'll keep the flags. 

We '11 keep the flags, and when our children come- 
The lisping patriots of the years to be — 

56 



WE'LL NOT GIVE UP TEE FLAGS. 

Asking, " What mean these flags, so strange to see? " 

We 11 say: * 'A race in slavery held dumb, 

Of their dead thralldom, these tl^e yoke and sum, 

Laid on the altar of our liberty ; 

A token that this land, of earth's the best. 

With all enlightenment will stand abreast." 

O, God of nations, ever keep her so ! 

In noble aims there is no South, no North, 

No East, no West, but all united flow 

To work the general good, the common worth ; 

And, manned by thy brave sons, to greatness grow, 

O Ship of State ; progressing still, go forth ! 



67 



ONE AT NICE. 



I. 



BY the shores of the midland waters 
The happy children play, 
And the song of the sun-browned peasant 

Floats on the cloudless day. 
In the uplands are fertile vineyards, 

Bordered by dancing streams ; 
In the lowlands the golden orange 

Bright through the verdure gleams 
'T is the land of the poet's vision. 

The land of love and song ; 
To the shores of the midland waters 

Presses an idle throng. 
And we sigh 'mid our daily struggle 

With the dull commonplace, 
For a sight of those distant countries, 

A glimmer of their grace. 
58 



ONE AT NICE, 

From our foreheads would fall the aching, 
Our bosoms cease from care — 

So we dream in our foolish fancy, 
And long to anchor there. 

n. 

In the blue Mediterranean 

Sail the fishermen's fleets ; 
Coming home, or with haste out-going, 

Merchantmen throng her streets. 
Curiosity lingers, ponders, 

Her sculptured domes among, 
Seeing visions and hearing voices, 

Ages ago that sung. 
Again pour the busy Phoenecians, 

Trading in arms and wines ; 
Building, thro' the ancient Nemansus, 

Eoads to her golden mines. 
Again pour the Greek and Koman — 

Nations must rise or fall — 
Nursing-mother of brave-souled heroes 

Ever was sunny Gaul. 
Vercingetorix against Caesar — 

Warriors meet for the land — 
59 



ONE AT NICE. 

By the shores of the midland waters 
Passes the specter band. 

ni. 

Not yellower-hued is the current 

Of Tiber, swollen with rains, 
Than Ohio, broadening outward. 

Bursting from winter's chains. 
Spreading forth with ice on her bosom. 

Under the pouring skies, 
Into the neighboring cottages 

Her surging torrents rise. 
Away flies the frozen villager, 

Storm-chilled and sore distressed. 
Looking back to see his home sailing 

Down on the river's crest. 
Then the sun beams out, calmly chiding 

The waters into peace ; 
Trooping homeward, the saa-eyed exiles 

Joy at the flood's surcease. 
If, mayhap, surviving the wreckage. 

Still stands the little cot, 
Round the hearthstone, chill and water-soaked, 

All hardships are forgot 
60 



ONE AT NICE. 



rv. 



Gold-bright in the hues of October 

Rise the Ohio's clifis. 
In scarlet-tipped glory, the maples 

Shadow the passing skiJEFs. 
Dream-soft falls the Indian summer, 

Purpled in tender mist, 
Nor poet nor painter hath ever 

Brighter penciled, I wist. 
Yet far from the vales of Ohio, 

Its heats and winter wind, 
To the shores of the midland waters, 

Seeking for rest of mind. 
Seeking vainly for rest of body, 

That lorn soul comes and goes, 
But ever the dread and the torture 

Of unrelenting foes, 
In that land with its old-time stories. 

Ages, ages of strife. 
Bearing with him an inward battle, 

He wages the war of life. 



61 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

BETWEEN tlie trunks of neighboring apple trees 
I swung my hammock, on a morn in May, 
And laid me down among the living things 
Called forth to dally in the spring-time sun. 
The subtle perfume of the apple-blooms, 
Newly unfolding from pink, sealed buds. 
Brought out industrious swarms of humming bees. 
The air was full of revelry of birds, 
A happy crew, love-making all day long. 
A gentle shower and kissing sunbeam's glow 
Ope wide the petals, till the land abroad 
Is a sweet nosegay, soon to drift its snow 
Into the lap of grasses lengthening. 
Then burst the leaves, and twixt me and the sky 
A shady covert stretched on woody ribs. 
Songs numberless are on the air ; I close 
My eyes and dream, till waking music fills 
The realms ecstatic of the land of sleep. 

62 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

O, a house is a hateful thing to me 
When the skies are soft and the breezes warm ; 
Let me feel on my forehead the kissing winds, 
Let me quaff in my veins life's rich ozone. 

Let me lay my ear to the bursting sod, 
Let me hear the violet's story of love. 
And share with the mother-bird the caress 
To the downy fledgeling under her wings. 

As in the hammock lazily I lie, 
The world that moves out doors is oped to me, 
"And now " quoth I, " I' 11 see life for myself." 
The robin red-breasts, plentiful as chicks. 
Pick luscious, unsuspecting worms and grubs 
From newly-spaded ground or grassy spots, 
And fly to neighboring nests to feed their young. 
After awhile, these youngsters, fully fledged. 
And bigger than their mothers, hop about. 
Still opening wide their hungry cavern beaks 
To seize what the unwearying parent brings. 
I know the younglings by their speckled breasts, 
But most, their helpless and improvident ways. 
A robin wrestled with a butterfly — 
A bright-winged thing — I sighed to see it die ; 

63 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

But humbler prey is mostly all tlieir care. 
So quietly within my net I lie, 
These gentle birds, with bright black-beaded eyes, 
Come wandering by me fearlessly and free. 
At set of sun, upon a gable's point. 
Gazing into the sky, the/ 11 sing and sing 
A tuneful song in rhythmic numbers told. 
"They sing for rain," says neighbor Cumberland; 
" Yes, mark it well, when you the robin hear 
Sino; lono; and loud, it means that rain is near." 
There is a bird that sings at dawn of day. 
Yea, tells the peaceful watches of the night ; 
When slumber fled from us in murky hour. 
Have we not heard his music thankfully ? 
Yet will you smile when that his name I tell. 
But long ago that strain my childhood loved, 
When daylight stole on eyes lit bright by hope, 
At first red streak of day, for some new toy, 
Some story to be read with kindling brain 
In the dim watch of morning. Chanticleer, 
Yours is the homely melody made sweet 
By old association ; tho' your strut 
And lordly bearing to your better half 
Impel me to incline to banish you. 
Some grains of sympathy these fowls will show ; 

64 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

They' 11 cuddle kindly to each other's necks 
In cool spring weather when they sit i' th' sun. 
Forth from their coop they march at early morn 
Led by Sir Cockerel, who gives the last 
A good, sound drubbing for her laziness. 

Not many rods away, half-hid by trees, 

Lives farmer Cumberland. His daughter's voice, 

While at her daily tasks she moves about, 

Floats clearly to me on the wings of song. 

A fair, sweet girl, brown-eyed and chestnut-maned, 

A tint, that might out-vie Hygeia's glow, 

Mantling the modest face ; a form so firm, 

Erect, and supple that Diana's own 

Could not surpass it in her fabled groves. 

Her mother's right hand and her father's joy 

Is Mary Cumberland, their oldest child. 

Now let me hearken while she trills her lay. 



THE VOICELESS SONG. 

AU day, the busy day o'erflows with toil. 

But my heart sings sweet ; 
My hands the world has covered with her soil. 

With her clods my feet ; 
65 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

But the thought within me sings, 
In my heart its music rings, 
I am borne on unseen wings 
By the voiceless song, • 

Tho' I labor, 't is duty that compels, 

But the thought sings low ; 
Is it thou fair Hope, with thy magic spells 

With thy rose-red glow ? 
There are glimpses of a time 
And of labors wrought sublime, 
So sweet the fairy rhyme 

Of the voiceless song. 

I may not, nay I can not reach the goal 

By ambition set ; 
The thought hath sung of patience to my soul, 

Let me care forget. 
Of all flesh I go the way. 
To the closing of my day. 
0, in me, with me stay 

Sweet, tho' voiceless song. 

Under the elm tree some one loiters long. 
Some one who listens to our Mary's voice, 
And well he may, for, sweeter than a bird, 

66 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Sweeter than bob-o-link with silver bells 

Chasing each other as he, singing flies, 

Is her song's rapt expansion. Now 't is done, 

And from the shade I see a form emerge, 

A stranger he, with wide portfolio, 

Mayhap an artist on a summer jaunt. 

He passes down the road and out of sight. 

An hour after, Deighbor Cumberland, 

Returning from the village, opes my gate, 

A white page in his brown, extended hand. 

The which he gives me. *' 'Twas the wind I s'pose 

Blew it across your hedge into the road. 

I picked it up under the old elm tree. 

Its one of your airy bits I reckon. 

Come, read you on." With attitude attent 

He stood, while from the page I lightly read : 

MY LADY ELM. 
(then.) 

The winter sky is soft with misty light, 
A new distinctness brings the village near, 
Snow-clad and still, which else had seemed less clear 
A touch of gathering gloom foretells the night. 
With stately mien a tree commands the sight ; 

67 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

lu buttressed strength, from chill recesses drear, 
The shaft shoots high expressing naught of fear. 
To face the elements of upper might. 
In tender curves, the strong arms drooping down, 
With finest fringe are finished to the tips, 
No leafage now to break the colors brown. 
Into the mind a lofty image dips 
Of some fair dame, of courtesy the crown. 
And thou art she, with gently whispering lips. 
My Lady Elm. 

I stand beside thee, and with rapture gaze — 
In nature, beauties are so manifold. 
And with a line, a touch, our spirits hold ! — 
When spring, her green samara cluster lays 
On every twig, thou art beyond our praise ; 
Thy plumed wealth in summer is untold, 
Holding his house for sweet-voiced oriole. 
In firm, fine fingers, thro' the changing days. 
Now here thou standest with the empty nest 
Bereft of all thy verdure, plumy, soft . 
A touch of snow is on thy naked breast, 
Yet in the sky thy head is reared aloft 
With gentle drooping at the outer crest. 

68 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Grace and refinement thou hast never doffed, 
My Lady Elm. 

HARK! HARK! 

(now.) 

Hark ! Hark ! The summer morn is breaking, 

And, sounding clear and far, 
The oriole from sleep awaking, 
Sings to the morning star. 
O sweet and clear 
From far and near. 
Sings to the morning star. 

The sun is up, the day is blushing, 
The leaves are pearl'd with dew ; 
From the high elm the song is gushing 
Into the happy blue. 
O dear delight. 
Joyous and bright. 
Into the heavens blue. 

' Sing, happy bird, our bosoms thrilling, 
Joy's harbinger art thou ! 
Deft weaver, toil with music filling, 

69 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Weave from the outmost bough, 

At love's behest, 

The fibrous nest. 
Weave from the supple bough. 

My Lady Elm, she clasps the treasure 

You give to her to keep ; 
And while you sing with music's measure, 
She rocks your babes to sleep. 
While sweet you sing 
On jubilant wing. 
She rocks your babes to sleep. 

*' Why, Farmer Cumberland, a poet here 
Is praising your old elm-tree by the gate. 
Doubtless that stranger who went loitering by 
An hour agone ; and, if I err not, one 
Who spent a week last winter in the town. 
And rambled oft our picturesque roads aloug. 
Take back these papers carefully, lest he, 
Looking for treasures lost, should find them not." 
*' Treasures!" The farmer laughed derisively. 
'' What values there, I'd like to have you tell?" 
*'A cure for colic or curculio, 
For blaines or blotches, balking, or for bugs, 

70 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Something to rid us of the sparrow pest, 

That would be valuable ; but these rhymes, 

Look you, I take no options in such stuff! " 

*' Yes, yes! You farmers always want a scourge 

To whet your wits on. First, a carrion crow 

Eats up your corn ; so set a goodly price 

Upon his head and rid the land of him. 

Then, by and by, with slow discovery, 

You find he does n't do so after all. 

But fills his maw with cut-worms and such stuff. 

Next 't is the sparrow : from the mother-land, 

Where centuries he has flourished at his ease, 

Without a word in opposition said. 

You bring him over, feed and coddle him ; 

Then, for the sake of a few natural faults. 

Ignore entirely his better side, 

And cry * Exterminate him.' But, no doubt, 

There's room for thinning out and driving off. 

He's such a cheerful little pest, that I 

Once made a song for him— I 'U read to you. 

THE SPARROW. 

My busy little neighbors, they have pelted you so long, 
I feel constrained in your defense, to sing a Httle song. 

71 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

From morn till night I've watched yon, thro' many a 

circling year, 
And I've always found you models of industry and 

cheer. 
One lesson you insist upon ; 't is " early go to bed," 
For, sure, you have no sympathy with any sleepy-head. 
And in the mornings, at my eaves, you chirp me wide 

awake, 
You teach me Nature's lesson, and her laws I will not 

break. 
So with the sparrow I '11 to bed, and with him wake at 

day, 
And health, wealth, wisdom, I'll possess, so does the 

proverb say. 

In the waters of a fountain you splash so busily. 

You surely are a tidy tribe, as any one may see. 

And in the arid city streets, with dust but at command, 

You faithful little Musselman, you wash you in the sand. 

Your strength lies all in numbers, and you are no 

coward race ; 

O, surely, in this fertile land, we have for you a place ! 

Go, teach the lazy vagabond, who begs from door to door, 

That God has you in keeping and he feeds you from 

His store. 

72 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

That God has you in keeping, and he feeds you from 

his store. 
Ay, hIiovv liirn that, from morn till night, you labor for 

your bread ; 
In Hummer time you have no lack, in winter cold, no 

dread. 



One morning, bright and early, I heard a loud com- 
plaint. 
Your shriekings fi(jrcc and awful, your mournings low 

and faint; 
And, looking from \\\y window, I saw a pirate jay 
Assault the little castle where your precious treasure lay. 
With })oldness and with bluster he sat on your nest's 

rim, 
And gorged and filled himself with what? O deed 

most foul and grim ! 
The feathers flew about the air — O could it be your 

young I 
No wonder, little sparrow, you think he should be 

hung! 
And yet, you hardy pirate, you saucy, piping jay, 
Tho' you molest the race of birds, I want you, too, to 

stay. 

73 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

My sparrow, if you fight, I 'm sure it is in self defense, 
When crumbs about my yard you pick, you come with 

diligence, 
The robin red-breast comes with you, the timid, pretty 

WTcn, 
And many another feathered child of woodland nook 

and fen. 
The oriole among the trees, hard by you, builds her nest, 
And yet, forsooth, the cry is still, "destroy the nasty 

pest!" 
One eve, a youthful robin, by hunger forced to cry, 
You led up to a cherry-tree — 'twas mine, it stood near by. 
You were a friend to him, and 1, who did your kindness 

see. 
Have never ceased, my sparrow, your faithful friend 

to be. 

' ' He has a fund of braggadocio, such 
As never saw I in another bird. 
I will acknowledge they need thinning out. 
I watch them from my vantage point, and this 
Is what I Ve learned : they hunt for flies and worms. 
But one industrious wren will equal 
About a dozen sparrows. Why, to see 
A wren among the larvse is a sight 

74 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Would do a poor, complaining farmer good. 
Yet look above you at that apple-bough ; 
In spite of wrens, in spite of sparrows all, 
'T is webbed and loaded down with insect plagues, 
f >>ok at that ' patch ' of cabbage over there ; 
A cloud of white-winged butterflies all day 
Produce the larvae which destroys their life.'* 
''Ay, anci between the drought and they, wliats left 
Will serve the small boy on next Hallowe'en." 
"' The drought ! Now there's a scourge so great tliat if 
You could make war upon it, like the birds, 
Sparrows would have a partner in their grief. 
Among the hills, near old Muskingum's shore. 
An ancient farm-house stood in days gone by. 
High on a pole a martin-box was set. 
They say the sparrows chase the martins off. 
If I could know that colony so served, 
I 'd hate the sparrows truly — that I would ! 
1 'd write another song t' undo the first." 
''Ha! Ha! Yes, write a song, and what of that? 
Much good 't will, one way or t' other do, say I. 
Poets are the triflin'est set in life ! 
The sun can't set, the sun can't rise, but what 
Some fool must put the fact in jingling rhymes. 
Why, even the flowers can hardly bloom in peace, 

75 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

Or the rain fall, or thunder shake the sky, 
But what some poet dresses it in ink." 
" Why, truly so, friend Cumberland ; 't is just 
That prose should blossom into poetry, 
As green leaves bourgeon into colors gay. 
Who tells the bird that spring is drawing nigh, 
And fills his throat with praiseful melody ? 
The poet, like the bird, enwrapped in joy, 
Pours out his glad heart in a song to sprmg ; 
Whereat, the tongue-tied critics screech aloud, 
And shoot their caustic arrows into him. 
When the sun shone, the magnetism of growth, 
With delicate vibration shook the world 
Then the poet heard. 
So did the bird. 
And with rapture stirred. 
They sang. 
Nay, even you, who cavil at his song, 
Will look henceforth upon your noble elm 
AYith clearer understanding, thanking fate 
A poet passed this way and gave you light." 



76 



FROM A HAMMOCK. 

A POET PASSED THIS WAY. 

Because a poet praised it 

The daisy seems more fair, 
The touch of burning crimson 

Upon her snow more rare. 
The upland slopes and meadows 

Are brighter in the day 
And softer in the moonlight ; 

A poet passed this way. 

Because a poet passed it, 

The hawthorn is more sweet, 
The bird-note from the woodland 

With music more replete. 
The rapture-throbs of living 

About our heart-strings play, 
For nature's priest has touched us 

A poet passed this way. 



77 



MICHAELMAS DAISIES. 

OBINS and bluebirds were singing 
Abroad in all the land, 
When over the greening meadow 
They wandered hand in hand. 

' ' Spring will ripen to summer, 
And summer to autumn grow, 
Before I can take my Mary 
To the plains of New Mexico. 

*' Violets, lilacs, and roses 

Shall blossom and fade away ; 
Can the woodlands, in gray November, 
Give aught for our wedding day ? " 

At their feet green leaves are springing. 
" Foremost of all the year. 
And last to witness of summer — 
Your bridal wreath is here. 



MICHAELMAS DAISIES. 

*' When the year's fairer children 
Are lying the sod beneath, 
Pale blue Michaelmas daisies 

Shall furnish my Mary's wreath." 

He planted them under her window, 
And all through the summer long 

They grew into slender beauty. 
Willowy, green, and strong. 

When their sisters, the purple asters. 
Embroidered the gray road-side. 

Proudly the Michaelmas daisies 

Wove the wreath for the waiting bride. 

Tenderer flowers have withered 
And sank 'neath November rain ; 

These only nodded and beckoned. 
Close to the window pane. 

Why comes he not ? " they are saying. 
' ' The bridal wreath is here. 
Faithfully have we not waited — 
The latest bloom of the year ? " 

•1^ ^U <t* *J^ vL» 

*j* 1* <P* *Y* >j^ 

79 



MICHAELMAS PAISIES. 

Ho has passed the Llanos Eslaoado, 

Seeking for golden mines, 
And beyond the niosqnite timber 

Show the misty monntain lines. 

Like the forti'ossed strongholds of giants 
Kise the rncsa^, grim and blaek, 

And lie knows that the fieree Apaehe 
ILis seented his siuuous track. 

: ^H )K H< H( 

Wildly the bhist is blowing ; 

To snow has changed the rain, 
And the brown stems of the daisies 

Tap on the window paue. 

** Is it he?" She is cold and pallid, 
Her eyes with tears are blind, 
T is the faded stalk of the flower 
That sways in the winter wind. 

Long shall she wait for the bridegroom. 

Alas ! She conld not know 
That his crow-picked bones lay bleacluDg 

lu the trail of Geronimo. 
80 



IN WINTER. 
grandmother's dream. 

PLEAS ANT and sweet to aged ears 
Ifi the song of the summer bird, 
When the buzz of fly, and the cricket's cry, 

And the running brook is heard. 
When the voice of glee comes glad^omely 

From the orchard blooming gay. 
And the wind is burdened fragrantly 

With the scent of the new-mown hay. 
And the creamy spires of the meadow-sweet 
Fling perfumed dufit at the hazel's feet. 

And rich if> the glow of the autumn old, 

On wood and hill and vale, 
When the dead leaves lie, like a carpet dry. 

Where the oaks stand, hoar and hale. 
And the boys and girls laugh merrily 

Where the rosy apples fall, 
81 



IN WINTER. 

And the twilight burus mysteriously 

Thro' the shadow's misty pull. 
But dojiror thau autumn's h:izy glow. 
To my dreaming heart is the winter snow. 



A dream of the falling snow : 
A wide old room in a country home, 

A wide old hearth and a flaming pile, 
And dancing shadows that come and go — 
Shadows that over the dresser roam, 

To be caught and reflected, coquetting the while 
With tin so bright and all in a glow 
And all in a smile. 



A dream of the snow : 
And a young heart bounding high and glad, 

A young face pressed to the frosty pane, 
"Watching the flakes that come and go, 
And whirl on the eddying gale like mad, 

To be caught by the weaver-wind in the wane 
And the warp of the carpet his nostrils blow, 
And a woof of rain. 
82 



IN WINTER. 

So ray old heart stops to think of the dream, 

And my fingers pause in the row; 
And I see the flame — tho' 't is only a name — 

And I see the falling snow. 
And down the chimney solemnly, 

The whistling wind goes by, 
And catches the cold snow ruthlessly. 

And whirls it out of the sky, 
And into the cups of the nooky dells, 
Till there floats a vision of chiming bells. 

A dream of the winter bells ; 
A wide white desert of moonlit plain, 

Guarded by frost-armed tall videttes. 
And fir-clothed evergreen sentinels ; 
A gliding shape and a music strain ; 

A mote in the mist where the crescent moon sets, 
A sudden clangor of rounding swells, 
A throb of regrets. 

A vision of bells : 
The quick, sweet swing of the merry round. 
The sweet, high beat of the hearts below ; 
A word — a whisper— and oh ! what it tells ! 
A clasp of hands and a world of sound — 
83 



IN WINTER. 

'T is all but rich, deep underflow. 
A toss of the bells and a quicker bound, 
That dies in memory far in tlie swells 
Of the fallen snow. 

And so, in a dream, I live again. 

And love again as of old ; 
The weak heart bounds and the dull air sounds, 

And the blank space burns with gold. 
For what, to me, is the summer glee, 

Or the autumn's rime and glow 
While the past floats in harmoniously 

With the bells and fallen snow ! 
And the star-gems weave a gleaming glome 
On the winter nights and the old, bright home. 



84 



KATYDID. 

SHE stole into the twilight, her girlish heart quick 
beating, 
The August moon rose low and red in lambent east- 
ern skies. 
The rays of tender glory pursued the day's retreating, 
Clasping the hill and tree-tops, whence her latest 
splendor dies ; 
But in the somber shadows of a vine's sweet wildernesses, 
She heard small creatures talking amid the wind's ca- 
caresses — 
*' Katydid! Katydid! She did ! She did ! " 
And now and then with quick dissent. 
One answered loud, " She didn't ! " 



A step is on the gravel : no ear like hers for list'ing. 
"Be still, O beating heart!" she prays, "you must 
not me betray ! " 

85 



KATYDID. 

His manly stride leads up to her, he knows the place of 
trysting, 
Where Katie spends the twilight hour at close of 
summer day. 
What murmur this betraying ? The voices stop to listen. 
Then all burst forth accusing, where the waiting moon- 
beams glisten: 
'' Katy did ! Katy did ! She did ! She did I " 
O quick ! speak out with brave dissent. 
And tell the world '' She did n't ! " 

Night deepened, like a flower, luminous petals spreading 

Upon the stem-like shadows, to every cloud and star. 
''Dearest," the lover whispered, ''my heart your feet 
are treading ; 

Nay, spurn it not, but keep it, my life you else will mar ! 
O give to me your promise, and hand in hand together, 
Our lives shall blend in weal and woe, in fair and cloudy 
weather ! " 

" Katy did ! Katy did ! She did ! She did ! " 
And not even one dissenting voice 

Was heard to say, " She did n't! " 

'T was years ago. They wedded, who happy troth had 
plighted. 

86 



KATYDID. 

Again she hears in moonlight hour, from every flower 
and weed, 
The creatures of the darkness pour forth with wing 
delighted, 
From organs green and scrannel, their many-voicing 
screed. 
Along the street pace by her full many a maid and 

lover ; 
She softly sighs for days gone by, while loud the voice 
above her: 
*' Katy did ! Katy did ! She did ! She did ! " 
Reports upon the mellow night, 
Tho' one retorts, " She did n't ! " 



She sees in mingled shadow a manly form approach- 
ing. 
*'He goes to meet the one he loves, as mine came 
years ago. 

But marriage brings forgetfulness, the cares of life en- 
croaching." 
He stops : " Why, little sweetheart, your face is full 
of woe ! " 

*Tis her own husband-lover; his arms, unchid, enfold 
her. 

87 



KATYDID, 

*'The love," he said, ''is deeper, which late to you 

seemed colder. 
And list ! the prophet of the frost ; the year, like us, 
grows older." 
"Katydid! Katydid! She did! She did I 
Katie did, she did ! She did ! 
She did I She did ! She didn't ! 



AMERICAN IVY. 

HIGH up, there grows on my chimney 
A vine with its waving sprays. 
I liave watched it many summers, 

In the arid, parching days. 
Not one green leaf was withered, 

And I wondered how, high up there, 
It gathered enough of moisture 

From the sun-scorched, feverish air. 
And I wondered how it came there — 

Had a bluebird dropped the seed, 
By chance, on a little mound of dust. 

Enough for its rootlet's need ? 



One day I solved the mystery, 
For, digging low in the ground, 

At the base of the old-time chimney, 

The source of the vine I found. 

89 



AMERICAN IVY. 

And I remember how, long ago, 

I had caught a straggling spray, 
And under the weather-boarding, 

Had tucked it safely away. 
Up and up it had struggled, 

Thro' spaces of glimmering night, 
'Till out on the roof, by the chimney. 

It had triumphed into the light. 



vine ! 't is a glorious lesson 

I learn from your history : 
The growi;h of my life is like to youre- 

A secret, a mystery. 
And I know that if, with rejoicing, 

I would ever wear a crown, 
In the dust of sweet humility 

My root must sink low down. 
And I know that tho' adversity 

May press me grimly in night. 
My trust in His righteous dealing 

Will lift me at last to the light. 



90 



THE CHICKADEE. 

THE winter sun is dim, 
The sky with miKts is grim, 
The patient trees stand bare 
In the still, freezing air ; 
Ice-bound, no waters flow, 
The land is wrapped in snow. 
Is nature dead ? Nay, hear 
Outside a voice of cheer: 
It is the chickadee, 
The blithe-voiced chickadee, 
Hopping from tree to tree. 

A sable velvet cap. 
Is fastened with a strap 
Under the busy chin, 
That helps the happy din. 
His coat of ashen gray 
Keeps winter cold at bay. 
91 



THE CHICKADEE. 

The day seems not so drear 
When that bright note I hear, 
Of merry chickadee, 
The blithe-voiced chickadee, 
Hopping from tree to tree. 



92 



THE KINGDOM OF HOME. 

WIFE. 

^ ^T SIT in my quiet kingdom, 
1 And queen it over my home ; 
My subjects are little children, 

My feet have no time to roam. 
My kingdom is little — little. 

But its labors are never done. 
Of the kingdoms of life you have many, 

While I have only one. 

^*The human hearts that touch me 
Are few, so very few ! 
While the surging waves of human souls 

,Are beating without on you. 
I dream that life would be larger 

Could it grow, like yours, in the sun. 
Of the beams of life you have many, 
While I have only one." 
93 



TEE KINGDOM OF HOME. 

HUSBAND. 

"Into your happy kingdom, 

When the daily tasks are o'er, 
I steer my boat and bless my fate. 

For the peace of its quiet shore. 
Your Kingdom of Home is dearest to me 

Of all I have ever won ; 
Outside are the sun and the surging hearts, 

But my sweetheart is only one." 



94 



SUMMER. 

I SIT within a cool recess, 
And watch outside the summer's glow ; 
My thought is like a drooping cress 
That feeds by streamlets fed of snow. 

Cool glades, with pulseless mossy hearts, 

Smooth banks with running brooks between ; 

'T is pleasant in these care-worn marts 
To rest one's soul in living green. 



95 



SOWING. 

1 PLANTED seed in fertile soil, 
For future harvest, ripe and good, 
Expecting that my faithful toil, 

Erelong would pay nie rood by rood. 
But, while the soil was slow to yield 

Below the autumn's crimson glow, 
Tlie bleak wind whistled o'er the field. 

And scattered wide the ice and snow. 
And all my grain lay buried deep — 

The ground so hard, the wind so cold; 
For who could know that in such sleep, 

Lay all my future gain untold ? 

I planted love, one autumn time, 
My heart so warm and rich to give ; 

I watched it thro' the gathering rime. 
And fondly hoped to see it live. 
96 



so WING. 

I prayed to see it spring and grov.^, 

And blossom out some sunny day. 
But, oil ! erelong there fell a snow, 

And took my timid hope away. 
And cold around my aching heart, 

The frosts and chills of bleak despair 
Were gathered, " never to depart ! " 

So said I, stooping low with care. 

But, day by day, the season wore — 

Bo blind wa« I, I could not see — 
Until the snow-belt bound no more, 

A nd streamlets murmured gla/1 an'] free 
And tlien I saw the springing leaf, 

And then I felt my bosom thrill — 
The blossom came, I bound the sheaf, 

And love and joy are growiug still. 



97 



"SOME DAY/' 

I KEEP alive within my thought, 
A happy word that came unsought— 
I think " a little bird" it brought, 

And dropped it in 
And dropped it in by chance of good. 
Its coming was not understood, 
And He who sent it only could 
Its growing win. 

It fell into my mind, and grew 

The long bright days of summer thro', 

Washed by the rain, fed by the dew, 

And winds that blow. 
Unseen in all the prosperous time, 
Till frosts fell down with whit'ning rime, 
Ah ! then it bore the adverse clime, 

Like mistletoe. 
98 



"SOME DAY." 

** Some day ! " It runneth like a song ; 
All the bright track of hope along ; 
It maketh glad, it maketh strong, 

This sweet refrain. 
It glows upon the coming years, 
Its voice is like a friend who cheers ; 
'T is as a smile amid our tears ; 

'T is sleep to pain. 

O Keason ! strong enough to bear 
The largest weight of worldly care, 
This word's elastic power will dare 

To meet your frown. 
Some time you'll find a sw^eet' relief, 
(For even you may knock on grief!) 
In pondering the accents brief, 

While looking down. 

*' Some day ! " I say it o'er and o'er. 
When days are dark, and all before 
Seems black ; or, standing near the shore, 

I look away ; 
And thro' the mist a city glows. 
Mansions of joy in light like snows ; 
Music, reunion, sweet repose, 

Por me some day. 
99 



A VALENTINE. 

TT7ERE I your sighing lover j 

T T And you my ladie fair, 

And passing winds your pages, 

I 'd sing into the air, 
I 'd smile into the moon-beams. 

And murmur in the streams. 
Or be the very music 

That mingled in your dreams 

If you should scorn your lover, 

As many maidens do, 
I'd yet deserve your favor. 

By being brave and true. 
And if you v/ould not listen 

To word, and sigh, and song, 
My deeds should be so valiant, 

You could not do me wrong. 
100 



A VALENTINE. 

I 'd come in gentle spring-time, 
When days are reveries, 

To be the hidden fancy- 
That drooped your dreaming eyes. 

I 'd be the tender sunlight, 

The breeze that touched your hair, 

The snow-drop or anemone 
That nodded in the air. 

I'd come the live-long summer, 

To woo, and watch, and wait, 
To be your willing knight-errant. 

As you should be my fate. 
And in the brown October, 

Ere maple leaves are red. 
The hill should gleam in dewy song 

On misty pinions spread. 

And should you never listen 

To what I had to say. 
In changing, gray October, 

Or leafy, laughing May ; 
Or, in the twilight serenade. 

Or midnight's glimmer late, 
I 'd breathe my heart out in a song. 

And drop it at your gate, 
101 



SUNSET. 

DA.Y sinks and wanes ; 
The red sun leaves the sky. 
The clouds thro' panes, 

Fling, roseate, many a dye, 
With transient stains 

-Of light upon my brow , 
Then fade and flicker by, 

Down in the west to flow. 

In tides that come and go, 
Then flush, and fade, and die. 



102 



OVER THE SEA. 

OUT in the gloarnin' I wander, 
Off in the purple day. 
Down in the ocean sinks the sun, 

Heigh ho I and away. 
Heigh ho ! sing the waters 
Low and murmuringly ; 
Flit the clouds in crirnsijn splendor, 
Bathed in shallows white and tender, 
Shaded, dark, and gray. 

Over the wavelets leap the ships, 

Draped in the mists of eve, 
Kissing the wavelets. Ah I the ships. 

What is this ye leave ? 
Cleaving the blue water, frc/ighted 

Full and free ; 
Out to the west they dip along. 
The crimson door with its hinge of song, 

Opes over the sea. 
103 



OVER THE SEA. 

Open thy lattice, western cloud, 

Out of the curtained blue. 
Beckoning fingers of red to the ships, 

Beckoning, Willie, to you ! 
Come O western, western wind, 

Fingers coolingly, 
Play with the curls where I have played. 
Stray on the brow where 1 have strayed, 

Willie, dear to me ! 

O, the wind on the idle waves ! 

O, the dipping of sails ! 
And Willie sailing far away, 

Heigh ho ! on the gales. 
Heigh ho ! on the rippled deep, 

Sobbing sooth to me ; 
For it sobs and sweeps the purple sky, 
Sweeping my Willie out and aby, 

Willie, over the gea, 



104 



CEDAK ROCK— A MEMOEY. 

A PLASH of waters, struck with silver oars; 
A dash of ripples on the wooded shores ; 
A voice of mirth and wit, and, pleasantly, 
A burst of laughter, gushing glad and free. 
A city fading dimly out of view ; 
A sylvan Eden, wrapped in dreamy blue ; 
A flower, worn for a token, and a glow 
Of romance, lighting up the water's flow. 
A bridge of moonlight on the river's sheen. 
Where fancy wanders o'er the lovely scene ; 
Echoes of music breathing thro' the dells ; 
Words, and clasped hands^ and fondest of farewells. 



105 



WRECKED. 

THERE, in my goblet, fain to fly, 
Your thin, brown wings no longer dry, 
How weak and struggling, low you lie ! 

Poor motb ! I pity you, but still 
To help you out I do not will ; 
Nor yet have I intent to kill. 

I '11 only leave you to your fate — 
Nor yet thro' sense of love or hate, 
Nor wish to see you desolate. 

The struggle is but slight and brief; 
Scarce does a ripple show your grief, 
Your idle flutter for relief. 

And now 't is over. Near the rim, 
A mote, a speck, an atom dim. 
It floats — a creature made by Him. 
106 



WRECKED. 

The bark is wrecked upon the flow 
Of shiny, liquid, silver glow ; 
Where did the little spirit go ? 

A myriad such, to-night are spent. 
In frailest body forth they went, 
And vanished ; but the supplement 

I long to read ; to penetrate 

The mystic world so dark and great, 

To eyes of man inviolate. 

My little shipwrecked friend, I pray, 
Forgive the pastime of to-day : 
I watched your spirit flit away. 



107 



TO MY MOTHER. 

MUCH liave I read on Time's illustrious page, 
Of woman's matchless purity of life, 

Her faith upbearing her on waves of strife ; 
Of women, single-handed, who engage 
To face the cold world's selfishness or rage ; 

Women, whose wise deeds still were nobly rife. 

Whether they bore the palm of maid or wife. 
Of all who left a record on earth's stage, 
I make an index, and record the sum 

Of patience, courage, prudence, constancy, 
Far-seeing judgment to life's uses come ; 

Self-sacrifice, that triumphed gloriously. 
Compared with thine, their victories are dumb ; 

I find their best surpassed, dear heart, in thee. 



108 



A CHRISTMAS MEMORY. 

TO S. B. S. 

5 rjl IS Christmas night ; the gusty gale without 

1. Bears back to me the children's farewell shout. 
The sports are ended ; darkened stands the tree, 
About whose glittering boughs they danced in glee. 
With heart content, I sit and muse a space, 
Upon a dearly loved, but absent face. 
I trace the features in the firelight glow. 
The while without, drifts down the eddying snow. 
In years gone by, how many hearts leaped bright, 
Around her radiant tree, on Christmas night. 
That good gray head, that crowned a youthful heart 
As girlhood's, fresh and free from worldly art. 
She led the sports that made her mansion ring, 
With laugh and song, as sweet as lark's on wing. 
Away, ye cynic crew, who frown on mirth, 
It is the sunshine of the winter hearth. 

109 



YOUR PICTURE, 

Thrice blessed be he who bars the door to sin, 
By making genial merriment within. 

^U *4^ *sL« *4« *A0 

^* *y* *y» ^j* ^* 

The gust grows drearer ; on the chilling blast, 
Another merry Christmas night is past. 



YOUR PICTURE. 

THIS is " counterfeit," sir, as Will Shakespeare 
would say, 
And ** presentment," he adds as a '' take off" by way. 
As a counterfeit, here in a paradox set it. 
You were lucky to pass it, and I, sir, to get it. 



110 



FOR ARBOR DAY. 

I OFTEN ask my thought, to show 
Why is it, I love Nature so ? 
Why does my heart, responsive ring, 
To every motion of the spring ? 

This answer I have truly found — 

Of nature I am all compound ; 
The bird, the flower, the swaying tree, 

Their atoms gave to fashion me. 

And when to earth my clay you trust. 

With requiem hymns and " dust to dust ! " 

I 'm pleased to think that dust may be 
Some grass, a flower, a spreading tree. 



Ill 



DECEIVED. 

SHE took his token from her breast, 
She dropped no tear, she made no moan, 
" The love," she said, " is all at rest. 
And I will spend my life alone. 

■' fickle, selfish heart of man, 

That I have lived to trust in vain ! 
KoU on, poor world, love they who can, 
For I shall never love again ! " 

She trod the earth, but ah ! its grace 
Was faded to a threadbare robe. 

The moon shone on her pallid face — 
To her 't was but a shining globe. 

She spoke of science — deep and wise 
From foolish souls she dwelt apart. 

An inward grief gazed from her eyes. 
And fed, still famished, on her heart. 
112 



AN EARLY SPRING. 

HOW radiant is the sunshine this early February ; 
I wonder where the Winter is — his haunts with 
grass are green. 
'Twas yesterday, that Autumn, with a lazy grace did 
carry 
Her fruitage and her garlands beneath a veil of sheen. 
The streams, 
Like dreams. 
Go wandering 
And maundering. 
Thro' a land half-real, green-gray ; 
Now, Spring comes down this way. 

The blue-birds flute and answer thro' the mornings clear 

and crisped ; 

They have told their tales of love and joy — ev'ry one 

is mated ; 

A softer note of gladness, with a tender trill is lisped. 

They have felt the last of Winter, the old tyrant harsh 

and hated. 

113 



AN EARLY SPRING. 

And now 

The bougli 

Is shivering, 

Half quivering ; 
No leaf yet to brighten their lay, 
When Spring comes down this way. 

But here comes March the lion, with his sturdy, boyish 
bluster, 
And the air is all adust ; anon, the rain comes down 
a patter. 
I have found a bed of violets, in fragrant, drooping 
cluster, 
I have gathered them and kissed them; if Spring 
lingers, 't is no matter. 
My heart. 
Apart, 

Still treasures yet. 
With dear regret. 
The flowers of my life's young day. 
Now, Spring comes down this way. 

The blackbirds, too, how busily their sweet, wild throats 
were ringing ; 
The sky was gray, the day was soft; full oft the 
clouds were dropping ; 
114 



AN EARLY SPRING. 

And the twigs were all astir, and the very trees seemed 
singing, 
While black and deep in counsel, eVry little bird was 
hopping. 

"Twee! twee! 
Come, see! 
The fields are green, 
And worms, I ween, 
Are putting out their heads so gay ; 
Now, Spring comes down this way." 

The lilac buds are bursting, and the hardy old goose- 
berry 
Has wrapped her in her mantle green, and Winter's 
scorn defied. 
Let me fi)rth into the woodlands, my anemones are 
merry ; 
And I long to push the leaves about, and find them 
where they hide. 
And I 
Will hie, 

Once more a child, 
In woodlands wild, 
To pluck the sweet arbutus spray. 
Now Spring comes down this way. 

115 



WRITTEN IN AN OLD ALBUM. 

TO LETTIE. 

') rr\ IS thirty years ago ! and here I sit 

J. And muse above the page : 
Of summer days, that into winters flit, 

Have passed away an age. 
I see fair girls with interlacing arms 

Pace softly to and fro ; 
Merry their laughter, radiant their charms, 

'T is thirty years ago. 

Dear girls, your wishes have been all fulfilled, 

They went not far astray ; 
Your Lettie's daughter's little prattling child 

Comes 'round her knee to play. 
And time, still running swift and silently. 

Pauses not in its flow ; 
Yet, may you read these lines, and say of me, 
*"T is thirty years ago." 
116 



rsr JUNE. 

I LIVE in the glow of a perfect light, 
I breathe the beauty of June, 
Hearing the melody, day and night, 

Of wild birds singing in tune. 
Hearing the hum of a myriad life, 
Burden the air with harmonious strife — 
Bum of the beetle, and buzz of the bee. 
Gush of the oriole, glad and free. 
And owlet under the moon. 

Bound in the spell of a summery charm. 

Distilled from the op'ning bloom. 
Stirring the linden, languid and warm 

Sunlight dropping in gloom. 
Gathering ripples of sound from the brooks, 
Where they gurgle loudest in shady nooks ; 
Laughter of childhood merry at play, 
Wafting all sounds by night or by day, 
To wander into my room. 
117 



IN JUNE. 

You ask me to sing in this concert rare, 

I fold up my hands on my knee, 
And list thro' the daylight's oppressive glare, 

Till starlight hushes the sea. 
For a ray of glory would crown the task. 
Could I give, for the simple gift you ask, 
Only an echo of all the sound, 
In the heart of Nature pulsing 'round, 
To thrill you with ecstasy. 



118 



WHILE THE YEAR GOES OUT. 

IDLY I sit with my folded hands, 
The days come in and the days go out, 
Time flows beside me o'er golden sands ; 

Far in the world is the victor's shout. 
I hear it, answering with bitter cry, 

Only a watcher beside the sea; 
Victory to all things living but I — 

Weariness, waiting are left to me. 
All in the past that was good or sweet. 

By the hungry present is swallowed up ; 
Famine-stricken, it lies at my feet- • 

I hold in my hand an empty cup. 
Time the river, flows idly by. 

Pouring the years in a measureless sea. 
Here and there where the sand drifts lie, 

The wreckage of life is found to be : 
A buried city ; a catacomb ; 

A tile, recording a great event ; 
119 



WHILE THE YEAR GOES OUT. 

A pyramid — some Pharaoh's tomb ; 

A sphinx with the desert sand-heaps blent. 
All that was ever rich or great, 

Luxury, leading the ranks of the grand, 
Touched by the scepter of ruling Eate, 

Lies with Babylon, deep in the sand. 
Why, having tasted the ashes of earth. 

All that is left of passion and pain, 
The dregs being drained in the glass of mirth, 

Should the soul desire to drink again ? 
Leaning, and longing, and looking on. 

By that essence called Hope revitalized, 
We peer for a brighter and nobler dawn, 

A life that we fancy may be more prized. 
Does the life that lives in deathless fame. 

Profit the soul-life that passed from hence ? 
Breath of destruction, or sword of flame 

Madly erases the evidence 
Of many a brawny intellect^ 

Swaying the nations who felt his prime. 
Vainly we scan thro' the retrospect — 

Lost every trace on the shores of time. 

Peace, be silent, O voice of regret ; 
Hurry and action are born with strife, 
120 



WHILE THE YEAR GOES OUT. 

The victor's path is with thorns beset ; 

Thine, to wait by the Kiver of Life. 
Mistily shrouded on either hand, 

Swathed in the folds of the winter snow, 
From a land of mists to a misty land, 

Onward the currents of being flow. 
Another buoy in the sands is passed, 

Let the young feet dance and joy-bells ring. 
The die, inexorable, is cast, 

The king is dead, and long live the king. 



121 



WITH THE CHILDREN. 



BIRDIE AND I. 

THOUGHTS, half joy, half sorrow, 
Come athwart my heart. 
It may be on the morrow ! 

Ah ! the fluttering start. 

Ends in the winter sun-glow 

Peck for the dainty seeds, 
From the blade of the Spanish-needle, 

Gipsy of wandering weeds. 

Birdie is twittering gayly. 
The sun is bright overhead, 

I hear his little song daily. 
As he gathers his daily bread. 

Birdie is thinking of summer. 
And his nest in the shady tree ; 

If he pauses to think of the morrow, 
Birdie is just like me. 
125 



BIRDIE AND 1. 

The morrow is cold and bitter, 
But I lay my head on my breast 

And think, like the bird, with a twitter, 
Of a baby-bird in a nest. 

Waiting, dull and weary, 

Soon we two will part ; 
I shall have my dearie 

Folded to my heart. 



126 



MY LADDIE'S VALENTINE. 

OHAVE you seen my laddie, 
With face like early dawn, 
When the sky is flushed with roses 

By Aurora gayly drawn ? 
His voice is blithe and cheerful 

As the robin's in the tree — 
Say, have you seen such laddie ? 
For he 's the boy for me. 

How gentle are his manners 

To the lowly and the weak ; 
You may depend, to every end, 

'Tis truth his lips will speak. 
He meets you with a smile and bow, 

His jaunty cap in hand ; 
My helpful, honest, little man 

Is prince of all the land ! 
And if his heart is pure and fine, 
I'll take him for my valentine. 
127 



HYMN FOE A CHILD. 

DEAK Jesus, born on Christmas Day, 
Little and weak. 
The weaknesses are known to thee 
Of all who seek. 

When little ones were brought to Thee 

In humbleness, 
In loving arms enfolded, then 

Thou didst them bless. 

And as of such Thy kingdom is, 

Pure, undefiled, 
O keep me ever in thy sight — 

A little child ! 



128 



HARRY. 



MY wayward, busy three-year-old, 
For sudden mischief loud I scold, 
So carelessly my wish to dare, 
He took my patience unaware. 



" Oo ought n't speak so loud at me, 
I finks it is n't nice ! " said he. 

'* But mamma thinks you 're to be blamed, 
And, dearest, are n't you ashamed ? " 
Askance he raised his eyes, gray-blue, 

" I is ashame — I 's shame of oo ! " 

II. 

AT SIX YEARS OLD. 

An apple to his lips he thrust. 
*' This pretty apple grew from dust ; 
129 



HARRY. 

'T was God who formed it from tlie mold, 
And made it tliis way, round and cold." 
He looked down gently at the sod — 
** I 'm often thinking, ' Who made God ? ' " 

m. 

HOESES IN HEAVEN. 

" Have horses souls? " Our good Haroun 
Stood munching grass we plucked for him, 
Our ride being o'er that afternoon, 
And shades of twilight gathering dim. 

Kind, faithful horse, he bent his head 
To gently press my nearing arm, 

And plainly, as a horse, he said 
'Twas love he meant, not any harm. 

Through fragrant, shady, country roads, 
In shine or shade, day after day. 

He bore my precious infant loads. 
Their fun and teasing, song and play. 

With more than human patience shown. 
"I'm sure I wish they had, my child ; 
If they have souls it is not known." 
The boy looked up at me and smiled. 
130 



HARRY, 

" But horses go to heaven, you know! " 
He said, with certain confidence. 

*'I 'know'f Nay, Harry, 'tis not so. 

No news of them has come from thence 

" To us." " O yes, mamma ! Have you forgot ? 
For when Elijah went away, 
'Twas horses drew the chariot 

That took him up the heavenward way." 



131 



LEIGH. 

4 4 T 'LL have a pants and coat, some day, 
J And be a weally boy ! " 
He sat and poked in dust, did Leigh, 
With deeply-seated joy. 
" And you will try, my little man, 

To be both kind and good ? " 
" Be dood? When me grows big, me tan, 
Most ev'rybodies could. 
When me 's a big, tall man, some day. 
Me tan't be bad I " said little Leigh. 



132 



BABY'S BY-LOW. 

BABY, tired out with play, 
Nods above his dinner. 
Wants his nap, but wants to stay — 
Tiresome little sinner ! 
^' Come to Mamma ? " "^ Me not go ! 

Wants to stay 'iv buzzer ! " 
*' Mamma, sing a sweet by-low" — 
*' Nuzzer dinny, nuzzer ! " 

*'Now, be still — don't dart about! 

Zh-h ! sweet by-low baby ! 
Cross patch, lift the latch, 

Sit in the door and spin : 
Here comes a gipsy man. 

And I 'm going to let him in ! 
Do n't you raise another shout 

Or he '11 hear you, may be. 

By-low, by-low, by-low, baby! 
133 



BABY'S BY-LOW. 

'* Hear the birdies out of doors, 
Singing all the daytime, 

While their little nestlings soft, 
Take the hours for playtime." 

Over droops the downy head, 
Fall the eyelids slowly ; 

Lay him gently on the bed, 
While we murmur lowly, 
By-low, by-low, by-low, baby. 



134 



SONGS WITH SORROW. 

Sorrow took my hand. 

And led me thro'' a dim, despairing land. 



AT ELBERON. 

THE hero dying, lay : 
About h.\s> couch a waiting nation stood, 
To see him pass away. 
O, with what anguish did their spirits brood. 
Over the deed of an insensate hand, 
That, all too suddenly, bereft the land 
Of one, whose exemplary brave career, 
Still grew in excellence from year to year. 

Watching the ships go by : 
Out of the far, interminable blue — 

Calmly approaching nigh, 
They pass, and sink in clouds of misty hue, 
And leave no sign. ''And such," said he, ''is life ? " 
But O, not such Avas thine ! Thro' seas of strife. 
He lifted high his hand, and wrote the name 
Of Garfield, on the deathless roll of Fame. 



137 



DEATH OF GEN. J. A. LOGAN. 

ANOTHER star has set, to greatly rise 
And shiue in Fame's empyreal. Nevermore 
The discords, and the strifes of this, our shore, 
Shall reach him in that galaxy, where lies 
A light translated from our nether skies. 
Lincoln and Grant, and hosts who bravely "bore 
Their country's shield triumphant thro' the gore 
Of civil carnage, shiill, with welcoming eyes. 
Receive him to the radiance of their sphere. 
Beside Antinous, shall they brightly shiue 
In ever crescive glory. And the tear 
A Nation drops, shall grow to power divine. 
Enriching the young souls this land shall rear, 
To follow in their steps — a noble line. 



138 



EPICEDE. 

TO THE MEMORY OF DR. WM. M. BEACH. 

'" rpHE thoughts unuttered, are richer, deeper, 

JL Than unmined gold ; 

The lives unwritten, march down the ages 

In deeds well-scrolled ; 
The songs unspoken, are more and better 

Than pen hath told." 

So, to my heart, my heart sang reverently, 

That afternoon in May, as on the slope. 

Grass-green and shrub-bedecked, before the door 

Of one who lay encoffined for the grave, 

I stood among a waiting multitude. 

From far and near they came, to pay the last, 

Sad rite of sepulture to the honored dead. 

"With voices hushed, they murmured greetings low ; 
But all around, the birds sang merrily. 
Thanking the Lord for such a blithesome day. 

139 



JEPICEDE. 

Sweets on tlie air the odorous lilac threw, 

While dens-leonis gleamed like studs of gold. 

Now, softly modulate, a solemn chant 

Burst forth ; then followed soon the voice of prayer. 

It needed not the word of minister 

T' apprise his hearers of the virtuous life 

Of him they came to bury. He had dwelt 

Among them from his tender infancy. 

His widowed mother — a brave pioneer, 

Descended from the hardy Puritans 

Of good New England — reared her family well, 

To honesty, sobriety, and thrift ; 

To love maniiind, their country, and their God; 

And luster they had added to their name 

Physician he had chosen to be, and when 

The war broke out, had gone among the first — 

Leaving the fair young bride he idolized — 

To serve his country in her sorest need. 

Since then, in peaceful times, his healing art 
And the care of his broad lands filled up his time. 
A rich and generous soul was his : would nurse 
The plague-strick'n patient with a tender hand, 
When others fled the air contaminate. 
A kindly word he had for every one. 

140 



EPICEDE. 

The long procession, winding black for miles, 
Has reached the rural churchyard on the slope. 
With one last look at the calm, peaceful face. 
His comrades dropped above him rose, and pine, 
And laurel. Clear then, on the sunny air. 
Rang out a shrill reveille from the fife, 
And earth had claimed him to her bosom dust. 

Yet, such lives do not die. In memory, 
Their deeds and fame are passed from to sire to son. 
The world is bettered by their noble breath. 
To tell their story will enrich our tongues. 
Such pure lives purify earth's atmosphere, 
And raise our aspiration to their height. 
Thus, pondering on the mysteries of death. 
Unto my friend, my heart spake reverently : 

When I am dead. 

And you are standing by with bowed head. 
Some kindly words up to your lips will stray, 
Perhaps a tear fall — 'tis the human way. 
Some tender thoughts, commingled with regret, — 
Because forevermore my sun has set 
On earth and all her joyance, and the night 
Of death, mysterious, drawn me from your sight, — 

141 



EPICEDE. 

Will surge into your bosom like a pain, 

To think that life is, after all, so vain. 

Yet I can die and be with death content, 

After life's struggle with environment, 

If some broad soul may whisper on the breeze, 

Such words as these : 

'' Here lies the clay 
Of one who ever strove to find the day ; 
Who loved pure truth and justice none the less 
Because so conscious of unworthiness ; 
Who from the noisy throng still held apart. 
Yet loved mankind with tenderness of heart; 
Whose swelling thoughts, hidden ambitions dear, 
Found but expression in an unshed tear ; 
Who hated heartily foul wrong and cant, 
Smug self-conceit and ignorance-echoing rant ; 
Who never bowed the knee to wealth-clad sin, 
Nor humble honor failed to usher in. 
The soul, having fled the chrysalidal clod. 
Is with its God." 



142 



AT A CHILD'S GRAYE. 
I. 

LITTLE one, whose life is over, 
Laid to sleep beneath the clover, 
Dost thou know that we are lonely ? 
Thou our treasure wast — the only. 
On the grass I kneel beside thee — 
Thee ? Ah ! no ; the thought doth chide me 
That thy soul is here no longer ! 
And my weary brain grows stronger 
With the hope so sweet and certain, 
That our flesh is but the curtain 
Barring us from life eternal. 

Shall I war with Fate ? Ah, never ! 
Ties on earth were made to sever. 
Help me. Fate, to greet thee boldly, 
Thou hast wrought thy will most oldly. 
143 



AT A CHILD'S GRAVE. 

Shall I call thy methods evil ? 
Thou with God, sure art coeval. 
Art thou, then, His ancient Brother? 
Thou art he and not another. 
Sweet my babe, my faith hath told me, 
Some fair day I shall behold thee. 
To my heart I then shall fold thee, 
When the sod o' er me is vernal. 



144 



MADELEINE. 

Ogive me light — O give mc light, 
For I am a little child ! " 
Thus saDg a precious baby voice 

One autumn morning mild. 
Through open blinds, the sunshine 

Came in a golden sheet, 
And fell, like angels ministrant. 

About the little feet. 
Like one enwrapped and prayerful, 

Tlie tuneful singer stood. 
Her upturned eyes and folded hands 

Bathed in the heavenly flood. 
An aureole of sunlight 

Played 'round her locks of gold, 
And thus our wingless angel sang. 

Our darling foiir-year-old : 
145 



MADELEINE. 

*' O give me love — O give me love, 

For I am sweet and dear ! " 
And in an anxious mother's heart, 

The voice sank full and clear. 
O here is love, my darling — 

Poor human love, but strong 
And hast thou learned — so young as thou ! 

What all must know erelong ? 
Hast thou the poets vision, 

To see with clearer eyes ; 
For what all hearts are longing. 

Thou thy song dost improvise? 
Canst thou see the far-off country 

That our feet have never trod ? 
Do the angels bring thee messages 

From that glorious land of God? 

Thy voice is hushed — ah ! never 

Shall it sound on earth again. 
As it rang that bright October morn, 

O sunny Madeleine. 
Did He — of light the fountain — 

Give an ear unto thy prayer. 
And lift thee to that radiant land, 

Whose dwellers know not care ? 
146 



MADELINE. 

Was it an arm of mercy 

Thrown round our gentle dove, 

That drew her to the bosom 
Of the source of life and love ? 

* ^ ^ :^ ^ 

A heart is torn — is broken — 
One is crying in the night, 
As rang the voice that sunny morn 
'' give me love and light ! " 



147 



MEDITATIONS. 



EASTER-EVEN. 



I. 



N this calm hour, 

This hush before the dawn, 

Thought, in the soul withdrawn, 
Like a shut flower, 
In contemplation dwells upon her lord : 

For us from Heav'n come down 

Lowly, without a crown, 
Save that of thorns, upon His brow adored. 



Deeper than tears 

From pity-weeping eyes ; 

More sorrowful than sighs 
And boding fears, 

151 



EASTER-EVEN. 

From breasts surcharged with human grief and 
care, 

Christ, to Gethsemane 

My thought would follow thee, 
Yet sleeps for sorrow thro' thy night of prayer. 

What tale of old 

Touches the heart like this ? 

The Lord of heavenly bliss 
And power untold, 
Besides the meanest felon criicifled ! 

Grief, thankful bow the head, 

It was for me He bled, 
For thee and me He lowly lived and died. 

If I may gaze 

With joy-be wilder'd eyes, 

From hills of Paradise 
To earthly days. 
What, with most rapture, may my soul recall ? 

Not senses gratified. 

But sin and self denied, 
The spirit's conquest over fleshly thrall. 



152 



IN DUBIO. 

THE grass is full of fragraDt flowers, 
That bloom, un watched of auy eye, 
So few adorn our favored bowers, 

Compared with those that, noteless, die. 

The glen, for centuries untrod. 

Withholds not hence one petal less, 

But scatters on the dewy sod 
Her prodigal, sweet loveliness. 

The Alp lifts high its frozen peak 
White thro' the frosts of thinner air, 

Scarce yielding when the lovers seek 
Her cherished blossom to their care. 

And why — thought I, considering— 
This vast expenditure of good ? 

Who reaps the spoils the ages fling ? 
The mystery was not understood. 
153 



THE GREAT TEACHER. 



HE taught of peace. He laid the law of love 
The central keystone of religion's arch, 
That all who followed in his weary march 
Might see it blazed in light their way above, 
Fashoned symbolic as the holy Dove. 

Of tribulations, desert wastes that parch, 
Sirocco winds also the soul to search ; 
Yea, of temptations that the heart could move, 
Y/ere to His followers promised, with the power 
To overcome, if faithful they endure. 
"Love not the world," He said, " for in that hour 
Ye Mammon serve, your loss of Heaven is sure." 
Who would inherit, hence, that precious dower, 
Must single keep his eye, his bosom pure. 
154 



TEE GREAT TEACHER. 



n. 



" Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, 

And few there be that find it ! " On the stream, 
In sunny days, life passes as a dream : 

We float and float, and swiftly ends the day 

In shrouding mists that fold us chill and gray. 
In wearing doubts, how does it us beseem 
To grind our souls out, praying that a gleam 

Of truth and reason thro' our minds may stray? 
"Tush!" cry the slothful, " such lunatic waste 
Is only fit for bedlamites and fools ! 

Intemperance consumes with speedy haste 
Of lycoperdon powder, the poor tools 

Who nourish such foul fungi. Men of taste 
Find fitter nurture dreaming in the schools." 



155 



A PORTRAIT. 

HE carefully selects the flowery phrase, 
The latest diamond-cut idea new, 
To soothe and please in velvet-cushioned pew. 
He gives to piety a satin phase. 
An easy gloss to suit with worldly ways. 
* * Minorities ? Bother the pesky few ! 

Go with the crowd. Majorities have due 
To rule and run the Church these latter days." 
He willingly conforms to wealth and place. 

Despises contests over right and wrong, 
Fine broad-cloth is sufficient sign of grace, 

Muddling in social questions is a song 
Fit only for the rabble. In life's race. 

Take all things easy, gayly, with the throng. 



W6 



MY ENEMY. 

IyAW him by the roadside. On bis face 
The marks of care and anguish plain he bore, 

The palhed hues of hunger, wild and sore. 
I ran to him and helped him in his place ; 
Washed him and fed him till the cruel trace 

Upon his countenance I found no more. 

I gently led him to my open door, 
And bade him enter, thankful for the grace, 
That to me had been given this deed to do. 

Thirsty, I gave him drink, and on his way 
Led him, at his command, one mile — yea, two. 

He asked me for my coat ; without delay, 
Nor waiting that a second time he sue, 

I gave him all, and shivering walked that day. 



n. 



He smote me on the cheek. With sudden ire. 
Up from my heart the blood leaped in a flame, 
157 



MY ENEMY. 

And ev'ry fiber tingled at the shame. 
Out from their graves burst each ancestral sire, 
Soldier and knight, and fanned more fierce the fire. 

French Huguenots, who bravely threw their 
name. 

Their lands away, lest Truth should suffer blame. 
Or drag her pure robes in heretic mire. 
I turned, and smote him back ! I gave the lie 

Svv^ift in his teeth. I stamped him to the earth ! 
I heeded not his misery. His cry 

Rung on deaf ears that used it for their mirth. 
I longed to make him desolate, that I 

Might show the world his shame, his utter dearth. 



m. 



That done, with sudden throb my heart stood still, 
For, in the dust before me, I could see. 
Nailed to the cross, the Lord, who died for me ! 

Upon His brow the crown of thorns had will ; 

And from his flesh the dews of blood distill. 
I could not move, I could not turn to flee ; 
Twas done to Him, that to my enemy 

I did. I saw it now with anguished thrill. 

168 



Mr ENEMY. 

O flesh that is so weak, flesh that is proud, 
What shall relumine now thy barren night ! 

When "Inasmuch" at last is thundered loud — 
Where wilt thou flee to hide thee from His sight ? 

Sweep hence the mists that our poor souls enshroud, 
Lord, lift to higher planes and give us light ! 

In afar land, and under iron laws, 
The master gave thee, ToUtoi, dearer sight 
And simjyler faith to follow simple rides. 
We, living in the light of Freedom's sun. 
Reject the word, with those of old who heard,, 
*^'Tis a hard saying I " muttering in excuse. 



159 



THE PILGRIM. 

THY way is in the sea, O Lord, thy path is in the 
deep, 
And thou dost breathe into my soul, awaking me from 

sleep. 
Into the sunshine of the day I lift my thankful eyes, 
To bless Thee for the golden light that shineth in the 

skies. 
A moment — 'tis a moment, Lord — I lift my soul to 

Thee, 
Then turn, as turns the mariner, my thoughts upon the 

sea. 

It is the sea, the sea of life, the sea of busy care , 
No foot-print marks its azure wave, no token of despair. 
And I, a mariner, must pass unto the other shore, 
Before the evening shadows fall and the sun shines no 
more. 

160 



THE PILGRIM. 

I know not what tlie day may bring, nor the next hour 

to me ; 
I 'm not my own, I bear a barque across the changing 

sea. 
What if the storm-clouds break, and what if I be cast 

away ? 

Beneath the wave, in caverns dark, that know no light- 
some ray. 

It may be mine to sink ere noon, to perish ere the night ; 

I know not, .but my barque is here, and I will guide it 
right. 

Though I should never see the port, the Master looks 

on me ; 
His eye can pierce the cavern's gloom beneath the 

deepest sea. 

I'm but a mariner— yet I can cheer'ly cross the main, 
Although the path be marked v/ith toil, the duty 

fraught with pain. 
My fathers all before me crossed and entered into rest. 
And shall I pause to mourn my lot, or beat my weary 

breast ? 
I 'm but a sojourner — my home is waiting far for me — 
When this short day has closed and I have crossed the 

narrow sea. 

161 



THE PILGRIM. 

Only a pilgrim! Blessed thouglit! I can be almost 

strong, 
And on my lips the simple truth is breaking into song. 
My sail is set. Waft, waft me breeze, and bear my 

barque afar 
Unto the land my spirit seeks, unto my guiding star. 
What tho' I toil in chains — they'll break, and I shall 

soon be free ; 
The Prilgrim at the haven rests beyond life's little sea. 



162 




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